World’s Most Powerful Solid Booster Set for Space Launch System Test Firing on March 11: http://www.universetoday.com/119263/wor ... -march-11/


That's a big rocket.

The booster known as qualification motor, QM-1, is the largest solid rocket motor ever built and will be ignited on March 11 for a full duration static fire test by prime contractor Orbital ATK at the newly merged firms test facility in Promontory, Utah.

Ignition of the horizontally mounted motor is planned for 11:30 a.m. EDT (9:30 a.m. MDT) on Wednesday, March 11 on the T-97 test stand.

The test will be broadcast live on NASA TV...

The 5-segment booster produces 3.6 million lbs of maximum thrust which equates to more than 14 Boeing 747-400s at full takeoff power!

Light the blue touch paper and RUNAWAYYY!!!

Let's hope they line it up right, I could do with a couple more hours in the day.

How much money is now going up in smoke?

How many Americans have health care, education and security?

Another gigantic waste.

Sorry just as bad a Top Gear. Toys for boys.

What a horrendously narrow view. You should get out more.

Think so? I remember when India launched its rockets what was said. Is America in any better state than India?

Yes, I remember the thought-free, anti-intellectual arse-water in that thread. I'm sure you have more of that to deliver, as is your wont.

hackenslash wrote:Yes, I remember the thought-free, anti-intellectual arse-water in that thread. I'm sure you have more of that to deliver, as is your wont.

With the state America is in you would think the last thing they would be thinking about is space travel.

You might if you weren't very good at thinking.

hackenslash wrote:You might if you weren't very good at thinking.

I question if the Americans have been thinking that's all or is it ego rubbing time again?

I know what you're doing, That doesn't make it any less fucking stupid. A more idiotic, blinkered outlook is, I suspect, impossible. It's the sort of thing I expect from cretinist fuckwits.

hackenslash wrote:I know what you're doing, That doesn't make it any less fucking stupid. A more idiotic, blinkered outlook is, I suspect, impossible. It's the sort of thing I expect from cretinist fuckwits.

Ok Hack it is a great and wonderful thing the Americans are doing.

Now does that suit you? Playing space games is more important than the state of the country.

I know who is wearing the blinkers and it is not me. In the Apollo time frame ok. America was doing well on most fronts but now when it can barely achieve any better than a lot of third world countries it is hardly the time to be wasting money on such a play thing. Ok?

What is the justification for spending so much money? I would like to see a joint effort in space travel. Something for the world to achieve. That IMHO.

Scot Dutchy wrote:I know who is wearing the blinkers and it is not me.'

Utter fucking drivel, as indicated beautifully by what follows.

In the Apollo time frame ok. America was doing well on most fronts but now when it can barely achieve any better than a lot of third world countries it is hardly the time to be wasting money on such a play thing. Ok?

This is horrendously short-sighted, and utterly fucking stupid. The time to be doing such things is AT ALL TIMES. There is no waste. That you could even say such a thing demonstrates the blinkers you wear. The benefits of such things are never short term, always for the future. To fail to see that is the nature of your tunnel vision.

America gets a lot of criticism but NASA is one of the wonders of the modern world.

That is YHO?

Does it solve or will it solve America's horrendous social problems? What are the long term benefits?
The fact we will reach Mars is of so significant importance?

Sorry. All I see is a country that is heading into the abyss of social destruction wasting a lot and it is lot of money on an ego trip of tremendous proportions just to prove what exactly? When it obviously better to cooperate world wide and spread the cost.
Remember left to the Americans the ISS would not still be flying.

Briton wrote:America gets a lot of criticism but NASA is one of the wonders of the modern world.

Is it? It likes to think it. With the amount of money that was poured into the Gemini and Apollo programmes any organisation could have succeeded.

NASA seems like damn good value to me. Ok, so they obviously threw a lot more at the Apollo programme, but that's hardly surprising.

Half a percent, now. What they could achieve with even 1%.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

hackenslash wrote:...The time to be doing such things is AT ALL TIMES...

Indeed. As an old proverb goes - "The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now."


It's all very well to say in the hard times "let's leave this space exploration stuff until times are better", but the problem with that reasoning is that even when times are as good as they're going to get someone can (and invariably, some petty whining-little-shit or other always will) still argue the same thing- since times could always, hypothetically, be "better".

The same goes with the argument that we should wait for improved technology before trying the really ambitious stuff. Anything you launch into space at any time can and will be made to look obsolete by what is (or at least could be) being built five, ten, fifteen years later (unless, with retrospect, the time you're living in turns-out to represent a "peak" in technological progress - in which case it's all the more important to press ahead now).


With exploring the cosmos, as with planting trees, if you didn't get underway a generation ago, than the best time to start is now, regardless of the state of the economy.
If the economy does improve, than at least the next generation have a head-start. If it doesn't, than at least you achieved something while you were in a position to do so.
What certainly would be idiotic would be to suggest that investing that bit more into space exploration is likely to be a determining factor that prevents an economic recovery when one were possible - if anything it's much more likely to be the other way around (that it may play at least a part in stimulating a recovery that may not otherwise have occurred).

Absolutely. The other point to make is that, from an economic standpoint, one of the most important factors is simply staying in the game and being competitive. Stay standing too long and it becomes nigh-impossible to catch up.

There simply isn't a good argument for not spending on space exploration, and many, many arguments for it that haven't even been touched on. That's why I call Scot's position blinkered and short-sighted.

Yes, a corollary statement might be: "If I had the experience back then that I have now I wouldn't have done the things I did, but then I wouldn't have the experience I do now."

Perhaps in the 60's the money would have been better spent on civil rights or the drug war, instead the experience was gained to (among other things) get an ISS up now.